


Collection the Second: University Happenings

by classics_above_classics



Series: Alice Dorothy and Stories Set Elsewhere [17]
Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Changelings, Curse Breaking, Gen, Magic, Starvation, True Names, the Fair Folk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 19:47:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19951843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classics_above_classics/pseuds/classics_above_classics
Summary: On occasion, outside forces are what cause the University problems. On occasion, lost students return.(A collection detailing the days of two Elsewhere U. students.)





	Collection the Second: University Happenings

**Author's Note:**

> three! thousand! words! and more! here we go!
> 
> but this chapter, specifically almost everything that isn't from Calcifer's point of view, has pretty similar warnings as the last work's. it's not as explicit, but there are similar themes.
> 
> still, I can't believe I fit this all into one update! woo! this was a day earlier than I expected it to be!

Warmth.

It’s cold, always, so cold, all through stomach and skin, but this place, this food- is warm. All of it, consuming him- is he being consumed? Doesn’t matter. He’s being filled, being full, with this warmth and this good and- _and it was so cold- so- so much- he didn’t think he’d ever feel warmth again-_

He can’t remember anything past the red forest, past the trees. Maybe, if he thinks, he’ll remember again- _but it was colder there, he remembers colder, white and barren and empty, with nothing to eat_ \- but he doesn’t remember. Can’t remember. There’s food here, though, and brightness that isn’t red leaves and warmth again, so he doesn’t care.

_(- He knew the name of this brightness, once, didn’t he? What was it? What was it- What was it- What-?)_

_(- he can’t fucking remember.)_

He doesn’t know what he’s eating anymore, but it’s good. It’s heavy and warm in his stomach, and it’s thick and it’s juicy past that. He doesn’t question it, doesn’t question the person who gave it to him- pretty and green, not like the red of the forest- he just eats. And drinks, once the food’s gone. There’s red in this, too, but it’s different- liquid, fluid- and it’s meaty and tangy like the food. Stew? Wasn’t this called stew?

How does he know that?

Still, this is good. He’s happy. He’s content. The hunger settled in his stomach is gone, all chased away by the food. He makes a little happy sound, curled up in this warmth and this new, not-empty. Not-empty. It’s so _good_ , things being this not-empty! So full and so warm…

It’s bright here, bright not like leaves but like _something_ better, but that’s comfy and good and impossible to resist. He makes another happy noise, drinking up the last of his stew, and in the fullness and light he can’t help but drift off.

_(-what was it- what was it- what was it- what-?!)_

_(- why can’t he remember?)_

⋈

Hunger.

It’s gnawing, burning, _eating_ at him- it won’t go away, it _won’t go away- !_

His stomach is roaring, and maybe he is too, screaming and growling and empty. Even grabbing the thing that once had food, there’s nothing but wood. The food’s gone, the green girl with the summer leaves and the basket of _everything he wants, everything he needs_ \- all gone. He wants it, needs it, needs it, and there is nothing, even here where it is warm there is _nothing_.

_(He needs more, he wants more, he must have more-)_

Distantly he hears screaming. Fear. Panic. Fear. He grabs for it, lunges toward it, clawing at anything he can reach. There’s something on his fingers, digging deep, digging sharp, and it’s heavy and it’s a different red than the thing he ate before but it’s _something_. He tears at whatever is making it, grabbing for brown, white, something- _cloth, that’s cloth, what is he doing?-_ he needs to get more, he has to have more-

“Help!” someone yells, all fear, panic, fear, and he blocks out the sound, tries to get more, to take more. “God, fuck, what the fuck-”

“Hey! Hey, what are you doing-?!”

Noise. There’s something there.

He scrambles towards it, to where anything could be- there’s something there, there’s something there-

Something drops.

He’s shoving it into his mouth before he can think. There’s noise all around him, loud and unyielding and not stopping, but he doesn’t care. The thing, this- food?- it’s almost sweet in his mouth, hard but melting into delicious liquid on his tongue. He finishes the whole thing, savouring the bittersweet taste. He’s had something like this before, he knows, but where, where?

“Is he _eating?”_ someone asks, the one on whom he can still smell the unfamiliar red. “I- what’s happening? Who is he?”

“Does it matter, D.? You’re bleeding! We have to get you to the clinic!”

“But he’s still here-“

“D., come on-“

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” someone cuts in, someone near the food. He growls, clutching it closer to his chest, as they step a little nearer. “Go. I’ll be just fine.”

“Are you sure? If he attacks you-“

“I’ll sure as hell be able to deal with it better than you. Go to the clinic before my brother takes me apart for letting this get out of hand.” The person before him shifts again- hands, hands moving, but not to take his food. There’s sound behind him, something he almost doesn’t recognize-

Are they trying to get away?!

He screeches, high and furious, and he lunges for them as quick as he can. Faster than that, there are fingers wrapping tight around his hair, dragging him back forcefully. He spins around, scratching hard at that hand- but there’s something grabbing at his arms, his neck, golden and pale and pinning him in place-

“Why don’t you take a second to calm down, sweetheart?” the one in front of him says, that gold a bright circle around them- straw, he thinks, straw won’t make him full- he’s hungry, so hungry, and his food is gone and he can’t reach it anymore, can’t eat it, can’t do anything-

“Have a bite,” that person says, holding that almost-sweet thing to his mouth. He takes the largest bite he can at once. It’s filling, good, _food_ \- he’s practically melting at the feel of it. More. More, he needs _more_.

“Come with me,” that person says, the straw around his wrists carefully unravelling, and they hand him the dark brown almost-sweet and that’s enough that he will. Do they have more? They’re pretty, like the green, like the last one who’d fed him. Will they give him more?

They don’t say if they will. He follows anyway, savouring every single bite. They walk fast. He has to follow.

They stop outside a door, their voice quiet. Their heart is loud in his ears- rapid, a prey-heart. They take the gold straw off of themselves and set it by him, and it ties all but his wrists down again. Then, like an afterthought, like an action they’re scared of, they toss him another almost-sweet.

He makes his happy noises again. There’s more. Finally, somewhere warm, somewhere good and bright, there’s more.

_(There has to be more. He needs more. When this is done, he needs more, more, more-)_

_(It is not done yet. So he does not ask.)_

⋈

“There’s a _what?!”_

“A starving, possibly feral student outside, ma’am. Could you try to keep up?” Calcifer’s smile is strained, but still there. They hope they can do this. They hope the chocolate’s enough to keep him occupied for now. “So would it be alright if I used some of the food in these facilities for a bit? Just until I can get the teachers involved, I swear.”

The cafeteria lady they’re speaking to, a new hire who clearly isn’t In the Know yet, stares incredulously at them for a few seconds before nodding dumbly. “You can have all the leftovers from lunch today. God knows we aren’t using them. Just… Just let me and Bethlehem leave first, alright? There’s a back exit, we won’t use the main door-”

“Of course I will. It’s a Deal.” A bit of an unfair Deal, if they’re being perfectly honest. But they’ll fix that. “I’ll make it up to you, I swear. Is there anything I could do?”

“I- I don’t-” The lady, Gehenna, shakes her head. “Anything will do. Thank you. I’ll just-”

“It’s no problem!” they respond cheerily. “I appreciate your help.”

She doesn’t seem to be listening, instead turning tail and making a break for it. It’s a fair response.

“Sweetheart?” Calcifer calls, opening the door again. They feel oddly naked without their hat, unprotected, but seeing the fibres of it holding their impromptu companion in place very much negates that effect. “Could you come in here for me? I have some more food for you. Have as much as you like while I call the teachers!”

The way his face lights up is almost endearing. Almost. He gets up quickly- they have to untangle his legs as he does, their hat flying back into their hand- rushing into the room with a high-pitched, animalistic noise.

“I am not qualified to be doing these things,” Calcifer groans, closing the door and making for the nearest classroom. They’re already feeling immensely tired.

⋈

Full, full, he’s so full-

There’s so much food here that he can’t name anything, that he can’t think past the flavours and the weight filling him up. He feels a little like melting. All of it, consuming him- is he being consumed? Doesn’t matter. He’s being filled, being full, being so, so _full_ -

The door opens. There are voices, new and different, deep and high and light and deep-

_(Do they want to take it?! Do they want it for themselves?!)_

He spins around, glaring and growling at the enemies. There’s a yell, fear and panic and fear, and as they step back he steps forward. His, his food, they can’t have it, they can’t-

“Hey! Hey. It’s fine, alright? We don’t mean any harm, sweetheart, you can calm down.” The gold one with the straw, their voice, in the mass of people- they’d given him food, they’d given him more-

“Listen, see, I really don’t want to restrain you again, so it’d be very appreciated if you didn’t growl at us.” They step forward, straw uncurling from them with every careful move. He stops, stepping back once- their heart isn’t as fast. They don’t sound like fear anymore. Their gold looks like warmth, like something, like things being alright. “You can go back to what you were doing, alright? We’re just here to make sure you’re okay when you inevitably go into a food coma.”

He doesn’t understand a goddamn word. _(He should, he does, he just can’t- can’t-)_

_(-what was it- what was it- what-)_

“Are you sure this is safe?” comes a high voice from the enemies, and immediately his head snaps toward them. He’s growling again.

“It’s safe enough,” the gold one says, and carefully they reach forward and tug him back towards the food. Reluctantly, hesitantly- if someone else moves he’ll eat them alive- he goes back to eating. The gold one’s watching. They gave him this warmth. He doesn’t think they want to take it away.

They’re saying more things behind him, the gold one walking back to the enemies, but slowly he’s beginning to care less and less. It’s fine. No-one will take this from him. It’s fine. He’s fine. So he eats and he eats till he’s drifting away, till the world starts to fade to nothing… but… this.

_(He falls asleep soon after.)_

⋈

The clinic is, at the very least, prepared for this.

“He was left in one of the starving spaces,” the nurse says, a tiny, brash sort of man who finds the school and its people far too hot. “There’s a whole bunch of them in Winter. Bits of the Autumn land have them, too, but it’s usually just near the border. Fey or human, people who get lost in them never quite come back all the same. I figure our new acquaintance found one of ours, over in Winter- see how colourless his skin is, compared to yours?”

Indeed, he does look a little too muted, like the colour had bled out of him years before. Calcifer tries not to think about it. “Do you know who he is?” they ask instead. The nurse is a Winter fae, if a weak one, or something too fey to be human anymore. They suspect a Deal gone wrong, considering that no-one can ever remember his name. He’s been here for years, nearly decades of them, and he’s never had trouble recalling a student.

“Of course I know who he is. What do you take me for, a child?” The nurse glares up at them, though the effect is diminished somewhat by their considerable height advantage over him. “He called himself Cutthroat, back when he was still here. Don’t think it’d be his safename now. He stopped coming to the clinic in his third year; I never thought to ask why.”

“What course was he in?” a teacher asks, casting a pitying look over his unconscious frame. “Do you think he could ever come back to it?”

“Culinary arts, if the constant burns meant anything. Just like the little Fiddler who dragged him over.” The nurse grins sharply. Elsewhere’s made him cutting, confident in his human skin. “What’d you do to get him so friendly to you, Calcifer? I touch him to get him in this bed and he starts growling, then you do it for me and he’s silent as the dead.”

“I gave him my chocolate.”

“To think, that’s all it takes.” The nurse whistles lowly, layering another blanket over the unconscious boy. “You want him going back to school? Already? Is that all that matters to you teaching staff or do you just not know what else to say?”

“Could we reverse whatever made him so feral?” Calcifer asks quickly, shifting the nurse’s focus from mockery to them. “Is there a magic for it or is it natural?”

“Oh, there’s a magic for it, but it’s not one I can do. And furthermore, it’s not like that’ll fix everything anyway.” Another blanket, and another- is warmth really so important? “The starving spaces take memory away quick, see. It’s the magic of those spots. They make it so much faster than it normally would have been. It’s like the memories are all frozen up in the brain, and then the hunger wears it away. I’ve been in one of those spots, when I was younger- barely got out- and that’s the best I can describe it. There’s definitely a natural factor to it, though, so whatever magic you work, you can’t bring back anything that’s naturally faded away.”

“And the starving spaces make the natural forgetting quicker?”

“Exactly.” The nurse stops, though presumably just because he ran out of blankets. “And I can’t do a thing against the starving spaces’ magics. They’re cold, see, and draining. It’s why Spring and Summer don’t have any. They can’t work in fullness and warmth. I don’t have either of those things, Winter as I am. His best bet for getting anything back is a Summer fae like you.”

“I see,” Calcifer replies. They’re feeling tired again. They can’t possibly be qualified to be doing this. “So how would I do that?”

 _Let’s get this done, then_ , the nurse hears. He shakes his head.

“Just fill him up with magic. Do it however you might like. It doesn’t really matter, so long as he’s not all hollowed out. That’s what the Spring lady who got me out of the spaces said. She took longer, I think, since Spring’s not as goddamn hot as Summer can get, but it should probably be about the same.”

Oh. Then…

Carefully, Calcifer reaches forward, laying a hand on the unconscious boy’s forehead. They barely even have to feel for something wrong. He feels empty, like someone ate the heart out of him, like his stomach and his organs have been drained in a way that can’t be fixed. He feels cold. It’s wrong, feels wrong in every atom of their being- people are warm, after all, like Watson curled up by their side as they sleep or Cowboy when he hugs them every time they make him happy or Johnny trying in vain to carry them like he did when they were younger every time they tease him about it. It’s antithetical to humanity, being this cold, this empty. They want- have- to fix it.

Focusing all their thought and all their force and all their magic, they think he should be warm.

It’s like a fire being lit inside him, like the boy being filled with life in all its weight and warmth. Calcifer focuses a little more, tries to keep the warmth going- their brothers are so much warmer than this all on their own, so much less empty, there’s so much they have to warm and fill-

Is it too much?

It can’t be too much. Because he’s still so cold, so goddamned cold, and they frown and make their magic burn a little bit brighter. It’s not enough yet. Not at all. The emptiness, the cold- there’s so much.

And isn’t that wrong? Shouldn’t that be fixed? They add more, more heat, more weight. There isn’t enough. The boy’s whimpering a little, but that’s fine- they can feel the cold burning away, bringing forth something more- more human, more familiar, more everything. That’s good. This is good. So they can’t stop.

Something cracks.

Calcifer freezes, their magic flaring at the sudden shift. That’s not right. Something’s wrong. Something’s going wrong. Nothing should be- cracking, or whatever the fuck that was. Is there too much? Is it too much?

It’s too much. Too much foreign magic, too much force- there’s just too much.

The cold isn’t reacting well at all. And neither is the boy. He’s whining like he’s in pain, shifting away, tossing and turning in his prison of blankets, and he’s shaking, God, something’s going wrong-

“I have to go,” the nurse says, standing quickly and leaving the room. It’s too hot, Calcifer thinks. There’s far too much. There’s more magic than there should be.

For a second, they panic- how do they stop this? _Can_ they stop this? Their magic’s instinctual, too forceful to focus. They don’t know how to stop.

“I’m going to check on the nurse,” the teacher says, making her excuses as if they don’t notice how hard she’s sweating. There’s too much. This is too much. She exits quickly, the door shutting behind her. Calcifer can’t speak to stop it.

No. They have to stop this. They’re not going to break someone, not like this. They don’t know how to stop their magic. But they aren’t going to let it keep going.

But he’s still too cold, not warm enough-

They shove those thoughts away and redirect their magic to themselves.

Almost immediately, their hat catches fire. They put it out quickly. Their head is spinning a little, like that time they’d caught a fever from the daisies as a child, and they’re feeling a little overheated. But that’s fine, because the boy’s stopped whimpering, his breath coming back in little bursts of air. He’s warm enough. And that’s what matters.

Tired, dizzy, and far too drained, Calcifer settles down to wait.

_⋈_

Warm. Wherever he wakes up, it is warm.

He shifts uncomfortably, sluggish under the weight of- of _blankets._ They’re called blankets. It’s bright here, like afternoon, and it smells like antiseptic. His heart’s beating fast, like a prey-heart, like fear. Where is he?

He whimpers, shoving the blanket pile away from his face. It takes seconds for his eyes to open, slow and heavy with sleep. Faintly, he can see- recognize?- a person sitting by this bed, all tired and worn and undone. Their straw hat is a pretty shade of gold. There are daisies tucked into its ribbon.

“Good afternoon,” they greet him pleasantly. Their voice is- familiar? Calming? Warm? They weren’t smiling before, but they smile at him now, soft and comforting. “Are you feeling alright? I hope nothing went too wrong.”

“I think I’m fine,” he replies- _and why is his voice so raspy, so weak?_ “I- where am I? Who are you?”

“I’m Calcifer,” their companion replies. It sounds almost fitting. “Do you hurt anywhere? Is your head alright? Do you need anything?”

“I’m- I’m hungry, I think?” But he feels like he’s just eaten- _but he’s hungry, but he’s empty_ \- “And I don’t- it hurts to talk. Is there-?”

Wordlessly, Calcifer offers a glass of water. “Freely given. I’ll get you some tea too, if you want it.”

He nods, gulping down the water gratefully. “Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it. Do you remember everything alright?”

“I think so.” He can think, can remember- words. Experiences. People are a little harder, oddly faded in his thoughts- should he be panicking about that more? Fear, panic, fear- “Where am I?”

“You’re in Elsewhere University’s clinic,” Calcifer replies. “You were hurt.” Elsewhere University… the name is unfamiliar. He doesn’t remember that.

_(He doesn’t remember a lot of things. Why? What broke? What went wrong?)_

“It’s warm here,” he notes contentedly, settling a little further into the blankets. “It’s… good, I think. Calcifer, right? My name’s William. It’s really nice to meet you.”

And why Calcifer looks so terrified when he says that, he has no idea.

William yawns, tugging the blankets further over himself. It’s warm here, and bright, and somehow that’s more calming than anything. He lets his eyes fall shut, drifting away in the comforting light of the-

_(- He knew the name of this brightness, once, didn’t he? What was it? What was it- What was it- What-?)_

-he drifts away in the warmth and comforting light of the _sun._


End file.
